Hub City Press announces the establishment of the $10,000 C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize. Submissions will be accepted through January 1, 2018.
The contest includes book publication and will be judged in its first year by Lee K. Abbott, author of seven collections of short stories.
The new prize is open to emerging writers in thirteen Southern states. Submitters must currently reside in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia or West Virginia, and must have no previously published books.
A $25 submission fee will accompany each submission. Submission information can be found at www.hubcity.org/cmcprize. Manuscripts will be taken through online submission only. All manuscripts will be read anonymously by paid screeners. This contest is guided by the CLMP Code of Ethics.
Hub City Press Founder and Publisher Betsy Teter says of the new prize, “We are thrilled to announce one of the most substantial short story prizes in North America and to honor C. Michael Curtis, who has been a great friend to Hub City Press over the years.”
The first winning book will be published in Spring 2019.
This prize is made possible by an anonymous contribution from a South Carolina donor.
Lee K. Abbott’s short stories and reviews have appeared in Harper’s, The Atlantic, the Georgia Review, the New York Times Book Review, the Southern Review, and Epoch. His fiction has been often reprinted in The Best American Short Stories and The Prize Stories: The O’Henry Awards. His latest collection of stories, All Things, All at Once: New & Selected Stories, was published by Norton in June 2006. He is professor emeritus of English at Ohio State University.
The prize is named in honor of C. Michael Curtis, who has served as an editor of The Atlantic since 1963 and as fiction editor since 1982. Curtis has discovered or edited some of the finest short story writers of the modern era, including Tobias Wolff, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, and Anne Beattie. He has edited several acclaimed anthologies, including Contemporary New England Stories, God: Stories, and Faith: Stories. Curtis moved to Spartanburg, S.C. in 2006 and has taught as a professor at both Wofford and Converse Colleges, in addition to serving on the editorial board of Hub City Press.
Founded in 1995 in Spartanburg, Hub City Press is an award-winning publisher committed to well-crafted and high-quality works by new and established authors from the American South. Its books are distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West.